


Five Conversations

by westolethelight (Llama)



Category: The Libertines
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-22
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:28:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23268487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Llama/pseuds/westolethelight
Summary: Peter and Carl have conversations. Somehow they still seem to have an awful lot of miscommunication and (sometimes) unintentional secrets...
Relationships: Carl Barat/Pete Doherty
Comments: 34
Kudos: 50
Collections: Peter and Carl fics to lift our spirits during self-isolation





	1. Creep

**Author's Note:**

> This is kind of a 'Five Things' fic, but the different parts don't want to play nicely with each other and refuse to conform to the same tense, so what can you do? Post 'em in separate parts!
> 
> Peter and Carl live in different flats (virtually squats) in the same building. Alternative version of how they met / became inseperable.

The noise from the floor below is fucking ridiculous: music, clinking, raucous laughter, and Carl's pretty sure someone already vomited on the stairs.

It's inconsiderate, is what it is. He's trying to... well, not work, but he's trying to _think_ , for fuck's sake. If he can't think, he can't decide what to do with his life, and then he won't ever work, will he? It makes sense to him.

He gets as far as Peter's door, but he doesn't get chance to knock. It bursts open, and a couple of girls fall out. They seem to be wearing one pair of shoes between them, for no reason he can see.

"Have you seen Peter?" Right Shoe says, accusingly, like he might be hiding Peter from them.

"I know you." Left Shoe pokes at him. "You're that creepy guy that's always hanging around. Peter's mentioned you."

"Yeah?" Carl smiles. He knows it's not a nice smile from the way Left Shoe backs off into her friend's arm. "He hasn't mentioned either of you."

It's petty, but it's a small consolation as he heads back upstairs. Fuck Peter, fuck his friends and fuck his parties. 

Carl didn't want to go anyway.

Creepy? Is that what Left Shoe thinks, or is it what _Peter_ thinks? He doesn't think that's how Peter sees him, but he's been wrong about people before. It's why he doesn't get close to people. He'd know though, wouldn't he? Peter's face can't hide anything, it's a constant and dizzying barrage of emotions and reactions at times.

But. But. _But_. He needs a drink. Shame he's skint, really.

The first thing he notices when he slams his front door behind him (as much as you could with these flimsy piece of crap doors) is the bottle of whisky sitting on the window sill. In front of an open window, which he knows had been shut when he left.

"Wild parties not enough for you now?" He says to the empty room while he kicks off his shoes. "Thought you'd try a bit of breaking and entering?"

Peter's head pops up outside the window.

"Technically only the whisky entered, but you've got me bang to rights on the breaking, copper."

"Fuck off," Carl says, but his heart isn't really in it, not when he's taking the bottle into custody and retreating to the loving embrace of his mattress. 

"You didn't want to go to the party," Peter says, coming in anyway, one long leg at a time through the window. " _I_ didn't want to go to the party."

"Are there often parties you don't want in your flat?" Carl can't help asking. It doesn't come out as sceptical as he intended. He's getting to know Peter.

"All the time." Peter produces a couple of glasses from somewhere. "They'll go away once the booze runs out." He makes a sad face then. "Could take all night though. They brought a _lot_ of bottles."

Carl grumbles, because he knows it's expected, but he shifts over to make room for Peter. "You'd better not snore," he says. "Or cuddle me in your sleep."

"I'll probably do both," Peter says cheerfully. "I'm kind of a monster."

"That's okay," Carl swirls the whisky in his glass before taking a gulp. Gah, it's good. He takes a deep breath, because he thinks he knows now, but he has to be sure. "Apparently I'm kind of a creep."

The confused scrunch of Peter's face warms him almost as much as the whisky.


	2. Star Quality

Songwriting was harder than it looked. Under a few lines of crossed out complete bollocks - albeit complete bollocks that had looked like utter genius at 4am with half a bottle of whisky down him - all Carl had managed to scribble was a list of the current impediments to his dreams of greatness.

Why I am not a successful musician already

1\. No guitar  
2\. No money to buy a guitar  
3\. No band  
4\. Can't fucking write a song anyway

He threw his pen across the room, where it bounced off the old fridge he'd rescued from the front garden scrap heap last week, and landed in the puddle of water that explained _why_ it had been evicted from its previous owner's flat in the first place.

The room was hot and stuffy, even with the window open, and it smelt of despair and stale whisky. He didn't want to be there, and he didn't want to be with himself, let alone _by_ himself. It didn't seem particularly fair to inflict himself on others in this mood, but fuck it, life wasn't fair, so he went in search of distraction, or as it was better known these days, Peter.

Peter wasn't in his flat, though the door was wide open. Following the sounds of shouts from outside and the slamming of doors along the second floor corridor though, he wasn't hard to find. Carl found him on the stairs with two ice creams dripping all over his hands.

"Carlos!" Peter thrust an ice cream at him. "Extra sauce and two flakes in this one, you want it?"

Carl wasn't going to say no. "Need sweetening up, do I?" he said, in a tone that was admittedly just a _little_ sour.

Peter grinned at him. "Couldn't say. Haven't tasted you, have I?" He leaned in, tongue sticking out, and Carl kicked him in the shin.

"I don't know why I like you," Peter said, pretending to limp as he made his way back to his flat. "How many times do I have to sleep in your bed before I'm officially a battered wife?"

It had been happening quite a lot lately. There was little enough comfort around that Carl found himself unwilling to object to a warm body in his bed, even if it did sometimes seem to be composed entirely of legs and bony elbows. 

"You do know we're not married?" Carl asked him, sitting on Peter's sofa. "Though it would explain a lot."

Peter nodded thoughtfully. "The lack of sex."

Carl snorted. 

"You know what I mean."

"I know the nights I woke up with your knee up my backside were the only nights you made it home this week."

Peter shrugged. "I met a girl."

Carl tried not to look surprised, but he obviously failed, judging by Peter's laugh.

"I didn't know you liked girls."

"I like everyone, really." Peter finished his ice cream. "And she has contacts. TV people, stuff like that. Maybe I'll get to show off what I can do. Let them see the obvious star quality they'd be crazy to pass up."

At that, Peter jumped up, did an impromptu tap dance that miraculously didn't end up with him in a heap on the floor despite his uncoordinated and gangly legs, spun his hat from hand to hand, knocked out a few lines of some song Carl thought might have been The Smiths, and dashed into the other room to grab a guitar. A _guitar_.

"See, so much potential you're dumbstruck with shock, right?" Peter said, as the jangly echoes of the two chords he could sort-of-but-not-really play faded. "I can't believe I'm not a household name already."

"I'm dumbstruck, all right," Carl said. He stalked over, and moved Peter's hands into the proper position, squeezed his fingers until they pressed down hard enough on the strings and Peter winced, and made him strum again. And again. And again.

Finally, Peter made a sound that was if not perfect, then acceptable. He let Carl take the guitar out of his hands, and watched as Carl played the tune that had been in his head for days, for _weeks_ , his fingers moving deft and sure over the strings.

"You can play the guitar," Peter said, his voice full of wonder. "Why didn't you tell me you could play the guitar? Will you teach me? Carlos!"

"I think," Carl said, patting the guitar fondly, "we may be able to come to some sort of arrangement."


	3. Stoned

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation into Chinese [here](https://m.weibo.cn/status/4489254552118181?) by the lovely Aglarien! <3

"You're a cloud." Carl says, aware on some remote level that he is a little bit drunk. A bit drunk and a lot stoned.

"Eh?"

"You're a cloud."

Peter sighs. "That, my dear boy," he says with a grandiose gesture that Carl can see Peter's shadow fingers sweep across the wall, "was an invitation to elaborate, explain, or expand upon."

"Hmmm?" Carl is still watching Peter's hand. He watches it slide through his hair, reach for a bottle, light a cigarette as his 'hmmmm' vibrates gently through his skull. Like a snore. Peter snores. Peter snores all night, and Carl doesn't think it's cute at _all_.

"Carlos. Why am I a cloud? In three words. No more, no less."

Peter makes such silly rules. Carl screws up his brain and thinks. "Floaty."

Peter snorts a laugh. "Light on my feet, isn't that what they call it? You old charmer, you."

"Fluffy," Carl pronounces, though he thinks he maybe used a few more 'f's than the word technically has. And it has a _lot_.

Peter's indignant face looms over him, so Carl ruffles his hair until it stands on end.

"Well I am _now_ ," Peter says, but he leaves it that way, and he's grinning. "Dare I ask for the third?"

 _Un-holdable_ Carl wants to say, looking up into those wide brown eyes. No, not quite. _Unhold-onto-able. You slip through my fingers every time I think I have you in my grasp. And full, so full of something waiting to burst out, waiting to-- You think you're the rain, but you're_ before _the rain, you're the promise of rain, the promise of something that could be soft and warm, or it could be shards of ice, a raging storm, a cleansing deluge. You're there and not, you're whatever I see in you, but I know it can't be fuckin' real. It never is._

He can't say any of that.

"High," he says in the end, deadpan, and Peter licks a wet, beery stripe right up his face.


	4. Notes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter isn't talking to Carl. Except somehow he is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter also happens to fit the 'odd communication method' Libs quarantine prompt.
> 
> Correspondence starts with Peter, and hopefully isn't too confusing to follow. Yes, they really are typing notes and shoving them under each other's doors. Sigh.
> 
> Spelling and punctuation horrors all theirs (I hope.)


	5. Okay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "He's not my boy," Carl said automatically. It was even sort of true. Sort of. They hadn't really talked about it, even though they'd been maybe-sort-of-kinda-unofficially together for months. Carl had no idea how to even start. Shagging men was new to him, shouldn't Peter be doing all the work?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final part. Unless I forget how to count, which isn't beyond the realms of possibility.

One of the less fun things about being poor and almost-but-not-quite squatting in a badly maintained house was the lack of a telephone. Carl suspected there had been a payphone in the downstairs hallway once, judging by the missing rectangle of plaster and the strip of faded taxi flyer that stubbornly refused to peel off the delightful nicotine-coloured wall.

Instead, once a day, he traipsed down to the corner shop, where in return for Carl's meagre custom and the occasional spare something or other he might happen to have on his person, Big Chris (hilariously only 5'5" in the worst tradition of British comedy) took messages for him.

"Some girl called Minky, your boy's mum--"

"He's not my boy," Carl said automatically. It was even sort of true. Sort of. They hadn't really talked about it, even though they'd been maybe-sort-of-kinda-unofficially together for months. Carl had no idea how to even start. Shagging men was new to him, shouldn't Peter be doing all the work?

"Minky? Minky who? D'you mean Mandy? From the Lion?" That might be about a gig. Not that they were ready, but realistically that wasn't going to stop them if there were some free pints in it.

Chris squinted at the scrap of paper in his hand and shrugged. "Could be. Morning kid took the call, not me, his handwriting's a bugger to read. Your-- Peter's mum again. She's phoned twice a day for three days running now, you know," he said, as if it was Carl's fault Peter was being an arse.

"I can't make him collect his fuckin' messages."

Big Chris just laughed. "He did. She's asking for you now."

The barman put him on hold when he rang the Lion, so Carl perused the noticeboard as usual.

_Hoover for sale, £10. Mostly works._

_Six foot tank, £20. Fish included._

Usual crap.

_'Wanted – new boyfriend. Lee, you're dumped.'_

Carl snorted. Then leaned closer. Someone had scribbled on the bottom _23 Mortimer St, Flat 5_. Fuckin' Peter. He yanked the lid off his pen with his teeth and changed the 5 to an 8. He owed old Mrs Lincoln payback for conning him into cleaning out her cat's litter box for a week with her fake bad back.

He was still on hold. The idiot barman had probably forgotten all about him. He sighed, resigned himself to going down there later to see Mandy in person, and dialled the next number on the list.

It was possible he needed some advice.

The door to Peter's flat was unlocked, and the man himself was a lump under the duvet when Carl escaped the Lion and wound his way home.

"Peterrrr," he whispered, climbing clumsily onto Peter's bed and poking at the lump. "Peee-terrrr,"

The lump wriggled, but not much.

"Three things," Carl said, sneaking a hand under the quilt. The ends of Peter's hair tickled his hand as he found a warm neck. "All you have to do is say 'okay' to them."

"'Kay," Peter mumbled, and Carl pinched his shoulder. "Three more things, smartarse. We've got a gig. So you gotta practice, 'kay?"

"'Kay." Peter's voice was muffled and sleepy.

"And I rang your mum." He felt Peter squirm under his hand. "She's not mad, but you have to ring her tomorrow. I promised you would."

"'Kay. I will."

"We had a long chat." Carl started to crawl under the duvet. "She says I'm as hopeless as you, and you're a bloody idiot."

"Wow." Peter turned over, eyes suddenly wide open and his hair sticking up on end in a way that wasn't adorable in the slightest. Carl brushed some stray strands out of his eyes anyway. "Thanks, mum. What else did she have to say?"

"She wanted to know when I'm going to make an honest man of you, but I told her I can't perform miracles."

Peter squirmed. "Ah. I didn't mean to tell her, I just--"

"Can't keep a secret to save your life. Like I don't know." Carl paused and took a deep breath. "She also says all I have to do is tell you you're mine, and you'll stop trying to pick up random girls on the newsagent's noticeboard."

To be fair, she'd said _probably_ , but this was Peter they were talking about. There were no guarantees to be had of anything.

Peter just stared at him.

"This is where you say--" Carl started, but never had chance to finish.

"Okay," Peter murmured against his lips, over and over, between kisses, until Carl forgot the word _probably_ even existed.


End file.
